Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Recently purchased the UX305FA and it arrived yesterday. Keep in mind this is a very preliminary review as I've had the laptop for less than 24 hours. I plan to update this review as I use it more. Feel free to ask questions and I'll try to respond. I'm going to try to be as objective as possible here and point out pro's and con's that might affect everyone, not just my own preferences. The good: -Size: This baby is thin!! I keep seeing publications reference it somewhere in the 12-13mm range. I have no idea how to use the metric system. This translates to roughly half an inch thin. It's also very light, tipping the scales at a minuscule 2.5lbs. -Noise: Or I should say, a lack of noise. The CPU has no fan, the hard drive is solid state, and there is no optical drive - meaning this computer essentially has no moving parts. It's strange using a machine that's totally silent when you're not typing on it. I love it already. -Price: This device retails for $699. Amazing that they can sell it for this price. It seems unanimously accepted from reviewers that this is a good deal based on what this model offers and how it stacks up against similarly outfitted competition. -Construction, Fit, & Finish: It's made out of all aluminum. Has a very nice feel in your hands, inside and out. The color is kind of unique too. It has a deep stone color with the slightest hint of dark purple in it. In a sea of black and silver laptops, this one definitely stands out. The cover has the nice brushed concentric circle design inherent to the Zenbook line, and it's very pleasing to the eye. There are also some thoughtful design touches which pleasantly surprised me. The top panel which holds the laptop's screen has two tiny little rubber feet at the bottom. So when the machine is open, they prop up the laptop at the slightest angle toward the user. Asus really took some care into designing the hardware in this thing. -The charger: I don't think I've ever seen a charger this small for a laptop. It's awesome!! So small and light. Comparatively my last charger was the size of a Buick. Considering you'll probably be carrying the charger with the laptop frequently - it's great that it weighs so little. Keeps the entire experience of portability intact. -The keyboard: Typing on it feels nice. I don't feel cramped at all and the key travel is decent for a laptop that's very thin. Keystrokes don't seem loud to me. I like it. -Matte Display: I wanted a 1080P matte display with no touch screen, and that's what this model offers. This gives me the opportunity to use the laptop at coffee shops, on airplanes, or in different areas of my house without worrying about sunlight or reflections that might affect a glossy screen. Out of the box the text is crisp, brightness and colors seem fine. I will likely spend more time tweaking the settings to get the most out of it. The bad: -No backlit keyboard: This personally doesn't bother me, as my last laptop also did not have a backlit keyboard. Many of my fellow reviewers seem to complain about this though. So I guess it's a desirable feature. Keep in mind that backlit keyboards are typically reserved for higher end machines in the $1000 range. Also if you know how to type properly, you shouldn't even be looking at the keys. Whatever, I don't think it's a big deal. -Power button location: Again, this doesn't bother me. But it is above the backspace key, and directly right of the delete key, so you can surmise it might be easy to accidentally turn the machine off. You can easily update what the power button does in Window's power settings. I changed it to "do nothing" so I won't make this mistake. -Backlight bleeding (LCD Screen): I noticed this immediately when I turned it on and saw the all-black boot-up screen with the Asus logo. This will vary from screen to screen, so you might end up with a unit that ends up being worse or better than mine. Might bother users that watch a lot of TV or movies, but to me it doesn't matter. This issue is common to LCD screens and not unique to Asus. -Speakers: I expected them to be under-powered, and they are. If you're buying a laptop for its speakers, don't shop for the one that's half an inch thin. There just isn't enough room for any really robust audio hardware here. Need better audio? Buy a pair of earbuds, or a bluetooth speaker, and the problem is solved. -Availability: At the time of this review, March 2015, you may have difficulty finding one at MSRP. Microsoft is sold out, and so is Amazon. If you want one at retail price, the only place I see selling at the moment is directly through the Asus website. Amazon third-party vendors also have this for sale, but they are inflating the price over MSRP. Don't let those fools con you into overpaying for something that should cost $699. The ugly: The trackpad. Some people here seem to like it. I personally think it's crap. For a $700 device, quality needs to suffer somewhere and for me it's the trackpad. My previous computer was a 2008 HP that had a wonderful aluminum trackpad that had a great feel to it and worked perfectly. Seven years later, this new computer has a trackpad that's only about 90% responsive with scrolling/gestures. There are left and right mouse buttons integrated into the trackpad, and on my machine the clicks sound obnoxiously loud. It sounds cheap to me. Clicks and taps seem to register fine most of the time. To be honest I've seen and felt better trackpads on $200 Chromebooks. I've shopped for Asus Zenbook's line before, and subpar trackpad performance seems to be an issue inherent to the brand. Hopefully Asus will start reading customer comments and work on addressing this in future models. I personally solved this problem by buying a tiny wireless Logitech mouse which works great. I'm keeping the laptop, and I feel this is a minor point of contention on what is otherwise an all around great product. The unknown: -Battery life: I haven't had the computer long enough to truly give a fair estimate on this. But I hope to report back. The sticker on the laptop said 10 hours, I doubt I will achieve that. Seems most users are reporting roughly 7 hours. After a full charge, I've been working on it for roughly two hours. The battery indicator says 71% and 7+ hours remaining. If that happens, I'll be content! UPDATE 3/21/15: On my first full charge I used the computer for two days. Over 4 hours on the first day, and 3 hours on the second. It might even be closer to 8 hours, but I charged it at around 15%. So I can confirm this computer will get at least 7 hours battery life on web browsing, typing, generic activities. That's plenty for me, but I'll admit I don't know how this compares to rival laptops. I have to do some more testing with it, but I would estimate 6-8 hours should be a reasonable average depending on how you use the device. The verdict: I'm a very conscious consumer who spends a ton of time deciding on electronic purchases. I always read a ton of professional and customer reviews on products and try things out in person whenever possible. I carefully considered many options before pulling the trigger on the UX305. I had an impossible (maybe even unreasonable) list of demands for an Ultrabook purchase, and while no product is perfect this laptop came very close. My other considerations were the MacBook Air, the Dell XPS 13, and a few others. Ultimately I wanted a Windows machine. For the money, this model is really hard to beat for what it offers. At this price point, similarly equipped laptops are probably going to run $900-1000 at minimum or a lot more. Overall it is a quality machine that appears well engineered and constructed. I'm a white collar professional, a part-time graduate student, and also spend a lot of weekends on the road visiting friends out of town. I wanted something that offered reasonable computing power but would be easy to tote along with me everywhere. I've seen some professional publications ding this laptop for performance, and its Core M processor. If you're the average consumer using this for web browsing, light office work, watching some videos and want a high quality very portable laptop for less than $1000 I really don't think there's a better option. Very happy with my choice. Go purchase this now, if you can even find one. UPDATE 5/5/2015: I've now had this machine and used it daily for about 7 weeks. I still love it and highly recommend it. I stand by all my previous comments when I initially wrote this review back in March 2015. I have a few more insights to share having spent more time with the product. To reiterate - I really love the portability of this thing, it's so light and easy to move around my house, or stuff it into a bag and take it with you. I recently used it on a flight from Philadelphia to San Francisco. On a full charge, I watched two feature length movies (about 2 hours each) with airplane mode turned on. I had 77% battery life remaining at that point - impressive! I've also noticed that even after being turned on for a few hours, the laptop does not generate much heat at all, which is great if you'll have it in your lap. The trackpad still sucks, and I avoid using it whenever I can. Two other drawbacks that are minor complaints, but still noticeable: fingerprints and display driver issues. A few folks mentioned that the materials used on this machine are prone to fingerprinting. I can affirm this is true, and if this bothers you, expect to be wiping off the laptop with a cloth on a regular basis - I find myself doing it. I've also noticed that occasionally the display driver will crash, and the screen goes black for 1-3 seconds. This may just be a Windows 8 issue, but I thought it might be worth mentioning. I haven't found a way to fix it.